Having set up their social media accounts in March 2011, Parks Victoria—the Victorian statutory authority responsible for parks in the state—is now archiving its social media content on the cloud.

“We archive all of the content we post on key social media channels including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. This helps meets our requirement of the Public Records Office of Victoria (PROV) to archive records,” said Jon Garner, Senior Communications Officer - Online, Parks Victoria.

PROV is the archives of the State Government of Victoria charged with issuing standards regulating the creation, maintenance and security of public records including the selection and disposal of public records not worthy of preservation.

“We must archive all social media interactions as public records,” said Garner. Parks Victoria uses a service provided by a company called Backupify.

Per month, the agency stores 200 MB to 1 GB of data consisting of questions and feedback from visitors, marketing efforts from the Parks Victoria team, and even responses to emergency events.

Earlier this year when major flooding trapped campers in a park, Parks Victoria used Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Youtube to “give immediate and accurate images of what had happened and show that the situation was under control and people safe”, shared Garner.

Exciting plans in Parks Victoria’s pipeline include finding ways to segment their main audience, and providing ways to enable people to select which parks to receive updates from, so that the agency can share local photos, stories, videos and events with the people that are most relevant.